Fact Cards

8161. Philoxenus Chose Quarries Over Flattery-Dionysius I, the ruler of Syracuse from 405 to 367 B.C., wrote poetry that did not always impress other writers at his court. When the poet Philoxenus criticized one of his poems, Dionysius punished him by sending him to the quarries for a day. After releasing him, Dionysius read another poem aloud and asked for his opinion again. Philoxenus answered, “Take me back to the quarries.”

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8162. Pope Julius Picked Christmas Day-Around AD 350, Pope Julius I reportedly fixed December 25 as the birthday of Jesus, even though the New Testament does not give a date for the birth. Historians still do not know why Julius chose that specific day. Later theories connect the date to Roman festivals, Christian calculation traditions, or attempts to replace pagan celebrations, but Julius’s actual reasoning did not survive.

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8163. Eminem’s Stan Name Changed Meaning-In 2000, Eminem released “Stan,” a fictional story about an obsessive fan writing letters to his alter ego, Slim Shady. Fans later treated the title as a deliberate portmanteau of “stalker” and “fan,” but Eminem’s former manager, Paul Rosenberg, said that was not the plan. Rosenberg said Eminem simply picked the name because it rhymed with “fan,” and the meaning became a “happy coincidence.”

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8164. Mosquito Proboscis Became Printer Nozzle-In 2025, researchers reported a technique called 3D necroprinting, which used the proboscis of a dead mosquito as a high-resolution 3D printing nozzle. The team chose the mosquito’s feeding tube after examining natural structures such as stingers, fangs, and plant xylem vessels. The proboscis produced lines as fine as 20 micrometers, about twice as precise as some commercial micro-nozzles, while costing far less and remaining biodegradable.

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8165. Seth MacFarlane’s Young Showrunner Record-American writer-producer Seth MacFarlane was 25 when Family Guy premiered on Fox in 1999. CBS News reported that the show made him the youngest showrunner in Hollywood history.

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8166. Kanzi’s Vocal Symbols Sounded Distorted-Kanzi, a male bonobo studied for language and cognition, learned to understand spoken English and communicate with lexigrams rather than normal speech. Researchers noticed that when he used the graphic symbols, he often paired them with his own vocalizations. Later, they found that Kanzi was producing vocal equivalents of the symbols he selected, but in a very high pitch and with distortions. His vocal tract prevented clear human-like speech, but the finding suggested that his sounds were not random noise.

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8167. Steve Jobs Perfected Hidden Parts-Apple co-founder Steve Jobs pushed design simplicity so far that he wanted Apple computers to look polished inside as well as outside. His taste drew from Japanese Zen Buddhism, Bauhaus minimalism, and a belief in “deep simplicity,” where designers had to understand every part of a product before removing anything unnecessary. That obsession later shaped the translucent iMac, which made Apple’s internal engineering visible and turned the machine’s hidden order into part of its design.

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8168. Surgery Laser Ignited Intestinal Gas-At the University of Tokyo Hospital, a woman undergoing a cervical conization procedure suffered burns to her thighs and rear after a fire broke out during the procedure when she farted. Investigators reviewed the surgery video and testimony, then ruled out coverings, drapes, alcohol-based antiseptic, doctor negligence, and equipment failure as likely causes. To test whether intestinal gas could have reached the laser field, researchers recreated the conditions with a test doll, smoke, a laser, and a bucket of lean beef filled with intestinal gases. Their tests showed that the gas could move toward the surgical field and that a laser could ignite it, causing a small explosion.

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8169. Coober Pedy’s Underground Heat Escape-In Coober Pedy, Australia, roughly half the population lives in underground homes because surface temperatures can regularly reach 113°F (45°C). Residents use the cooler ground to escape the punishing heat instead of relying solely on surface buildings. The town’s golf course also reflects the harsh landscape, with no grass and players carrying a swatch of AstroTurf to tee off from at each hole.

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8170. Alvin Kamara Banked NFL Paychecks-In 2021, American NFL player Alvin Kamara said he still had not spent any of his football salary after four years in the league. He had signed a five-year, $75 million contract with the New Orleans Saints in 2020, but he lived off endorsement money instead of touching his NFL checks. Kamara said he learned caution from seeing how little money his family once had, explaining, “My mom ain’t never had this much. It would be a shame if I got this and lost it.”

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37 COMMENTS

  1. Would you mind if I started to post these facts on iFunny? I really think people would love them and I would of course credit and link your website.

    1094
  2. Your page (re)numbering makes it almost impossible to find something on your site. The search option doesn’t seem very helpful.. I tried to search for Harris Rosen or Fact #62 after seeing it on Bored Panda, but had to do a brute force search to find this page…

    1096
  3. I just went through all the facts pages. A few things I’ve noticed:
    1. #451-#470 (pgs 46 & 47) have images that are broken.
    2. #841-#1140 (pgs 85-114) are complete duplicates of earlier pages.

    11
    • Thank you for your valuable feedback. Last night we implemented a new page numbering system for our fact cards. I really messed up with facts #451-#470 which I have fixed now. I have fixed the other problem too.

      10
  4. Just stumbled onto your site via an Imgur post. Cool stuff.

    Re. one of the citations above: “The oldest D20 dice was uncovered in Egypt…”

    One “die,” many “dice.” The headline in the source given had it right; “Ancient d20 die emerges from the ashes of time.”

    Credibility is always enhanced by proper grammar.

    18
  5. I really enjoy your site. I visit it regularly at this period of my life to use up time, while entertaining myself, and increase my awareness of life through the amazing insights into stories behind what we often overlook. It is almost therapeutic I would think! For one thing, I feel grateful not to be one of the warped personalities you often report on, but on the other hand, I feel sorry for the suffering that is really behind so many people you note through our shared history, who have the apparency of many successes, but are in fact imperfect and suffering souls like all of us, on the road to something better we hope eh?

    5
    • History gives us an opportunity to look into the mistake our ancestors made, but also the feats they achieved. The lives they suffered, so that the future generations could have the freedom. I am happy to have been part of such an important part of your life, Stuart.

      6
  6. I’m sure it’s like asking a magician how his tricks are done, but I would love to know the workings of the research you have to go through to find/verify everything I’ve read on your site. To say they are entertaining would be an insult. I read several pages daily. I have found them to be fascinating, educational, informative, and downright important.

    When I was a child and went on long road trips with my parents, my Mom would would bring a box of Trivial Pursuit cards to read and ask questions to pass the time for everyone in the car…My Wife now reads these to our kids on our vacations.

    Do you take fact submissions, or do you rely on your own people to research and present them to your team/site? The only thing I can say about your site, is some click ads could be modified or even done away with. Political opinion polls, etc…I would sooner see and ad for shaving cream that some of those useless and probably biased ads (not you, just the people conducting them) But, I love what you do and am so glad that your site exists!

    1224
    • Thank you Ryan. It’s the readers like you who keep us going. It gives us immense pleasure to know that you love reading facts on our site. We do take submissions. About 10% of our facts come from submissions. You too can submit facts by filling out this form Contact Us. The ads are what keeps the servers running. We don’t take any donations, use patreon or sell merch on our site so ads are how we generate income. Though, we will take your advice to tone down the ads (we can’t really see what kind of ad our readers see as it’s decided by Google).

      7
  7. 1454: She wasn’t found “shortly” after, which might imply that 911 had tried to help and just didn’t arrive in time; she was found HOURS after.

    1182
  8. Each of these pages of facts should have its own page for commenting instead of many fact pages and only one place to comment. I’d also delete my post about each fact having its own page since the aforementioned idea is better, but I can’t.

    1270
  9. I love this website I use it all the time and it allows me to attain info that I have been able to use irl all the time. Keep up the great work!

    5
  10. Also Rickinator for 610 killing bears is not a good thing due to most species of bears being endangered it is just a fact/statistic

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  11. Your fact card is WRONG! You state Queen Elizabeth II is related to George Washington (which is correct), however, then you all say “Their last living common ancestor is Augustine Warner, Sr. who died in XX.”

    That’s incorrect! i am related to both Col. Augustine Warner, Sr. and George Washington and I’m very much alive as are my family members and 1 uncle and his 2 sons.

    1

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